Our crystal starts life as pellets of the original mix of lead oxide and refined sand, which is then heated to a temperature of 1295˚C to melt the raw material into the lead crystal over a seven hour period. The refined glass is then allowed to cool to the working teperature of 1100˚C ready for use by the glassmakers. The glass is gathered from the furnace on a blowing pipe, blown and shaped by hand, component by component, before being annealed allowing to glass to cool at a steady rate to remove the stress in the glass caused by the making process. After annealing, the excess is removed and the edges ground and polished, again by hand. Now cooled and fully shaped, the piece is marked up on a turntable, against the design template, before being hand-cut. The opaque marks caused by cutting are removed by acid-polishing at our own Stourbridge facility. At every stage of the process all our pieces are checked for quality and any faulty or damaged items are broken up for recycling. |
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